Starting form the domains selected during the feasibility  study, the management plan selects most profitable projects, defines them completely, plans their implementation on a three years period, and selects the pilot projects.

Project Selection and Planning

The management plan is the result of an in depth analysis of the domains selected during the feasibility study. Its selects and defines precisely projects based upon their profitability and enterprise priorities.

Each selected domain will be decomposed into several projects. Each project will be precisely specified. From these resulting project catalogue, a selection will be made of those to be further defined in greater details.

All the common infrastructure requirements (networking, workstations, servers, middleware, operation and administration tools) will be processed by a separate infrastructure project, whose goal will be to share related investments, deployment, and operation costs between all individual projects.

Only then will be selected the pilot projects to be conducted to train enterprise to conduct group technology projects, and to validate the hypothesis of the project plan in terms of costs and benefits. 

Finally, in view of the results obtained, and of the resources available, a three years planning will be decided.

Priority to Work Analysis

Priority is given to work analysis in the selected domains. In order to obtain the required accuracy for final project selection, it is necessary to enter into details of daily activities of users impacted in the domain. This needs the participation of experts of the domain (accounting, delivery chain, customer care, research and development, planning and forecasting, sales, support ...) and the users themselves assisted by a work analyst.

Of course, other expertise like EDP, group technologies, organization, human resources management, are essential but they will contribute only when work analysis will be completed to determine the precise scope, organization and profitability of the project.

Validated and Consistent Projects

Group technology projects boundaries must be precisely defined with targeted scope relating a precisely identified group of users with common goals, homogeneous requirements, to a set of limited group techniques precisely identified. This is a key element of each project definition that determines its efficiency and chances of success inside budget constraints. A proper definition will ease and expedite efforts to define the project, implement it, train users, deploy the applications and measurer its results.

For those reasons, group projects are usually small, numerous, of short duration, unlike classical EDP projects. They are also simpler to start, easier to stop, they can be quickly amended, and accumulated results are easier to monitor than with several years traditional projects where final results can be evaluated only when most of the expenses are already done.

Such a multiple small projects structure eases the decision on the projects to select according to (changing) priorities, (changing) investments budgets, and (changing) market demand.

Progresses in a Logical Sequence

Potential projects are selected among the ones detected previously. They are further specified and evaluated, and from that point the management board makes a second selection. Each project is further studied. When required, a first re-engineering effort is conducted before conducting a preliminary R.O.I. analysis.

Form the requirements of each project, the infrastructure project is specified. The final choice of projects to be conducted is then made, and then pilot projects are decided. Finally the global planning is established and the corresponding financial plan.

A change management plan identifies the synthesis of the changes like: qualification changes, organizational changes, and employment changes in quantity and quality. Actions to manage those changes are planned and evaluated, including training and motivation plans.

W&GS tools

W&GS provides a set of tools that eases the process and secures it through check lists of critical items.